DAVID, Elizabeth; John MINTON (illustrator). A Book of Mediterranean Food London: John Lehmann. 1950, 1953.
8vo. Two volumes. 1. First edition, 1950; 8vo. Original pink tweed cloth, spine lettered in gilt to ornamental brown background, in the John Minton illustrated dustwrapper; pp. 191, [1], two-page frontispiece, illustrations throughout; a well-used copy, binding firm and square, contemporary ownership inscription (“Fay Behrman, Dec. 50”) to front free endpaper, rear pastedown and upper edge of frontispiece, her name additionally written in block capitals (with indeterminate doodle) to front endpaper and closed fore-edge of page block, additional pasted-in recipes now loose owing to dried adhesive, numerous marks from adhesive residue, further recipes in manuscript (pencil and ink) to front and rear blanks and endpapers, dustwrapper chipped and rubbed to extremities, minor loss to lower spine-tip and upper outer corner, adhesive residue to flaps; Provenance: previously owned by Fay Behrman (1920-2014); a well-used, much-loved copy in very good dustwrapper.
2. Fifth Impression, November 1952; 8vo. Original pink cloth, spine (once) lettered gilt to ornamental brown background (lettering now worn away), lacking the dustwrapper; pp. xi, [3], 191, [1], two-page frontispiece, illustrations throughout; lacking dustwrapper; a firm, square copy, rubbed to spine, cloth lightly faded to upper edges, small diagonal crease to upper corner of p. 93; inscribed by Elizabeth David to Norman Jenks, “in gratitude, February 1953”; a very good copy, the contents clean and bright.
Two copies of Elizabeth David’s first book – a well-loved first edition with attractive provenance and a reprint inscribed by the author. Published at a time of post-war austerity, David’s recipes and John Minton’s illustrations offered a welcome draught of Mediterranean warmth and sensory pleasure into the kitchens and minds of English readers.
It is difficult, today, to imagine the impact of Elizabeth David’s early books on a British population still subject to post-war austerity and rationing. A Book of Mediterranean Food, her first book, appeared in 1950 when, the author later wrote, “almost every essential ingredient of good cooking was either rationed or unobtainable.” Having spent the war years travelling and working in France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and India, she returned to England in 1946 for reasons of health. “Without a job, and with precious little to do except cook”, she began compiling recipes learned on her travels, “less with any thought of future publication than as a personal antidote to the bleak conditions and acute food shortages of […] post-war England”.
A Book of Mediterranean Food, rejected by numerous publishers, was eventually taken on by John Lehmann, a literary publisher not readily associated with books about food. When John Minton's “stunning” jacket appeared in shop windows, David recalled, “his brilliant blue Mediterranean bay, his tables spread with white cloths and bright fruit, bowls of pasta and rice, a lobster, pitchers and jugs and bottles of wine, could be seen far down the street”. Cookery books quickly date, but David’s, with their impeccable prose, literary sensibility (the volume is studded with quotations from writers, including her friends Norman Douglas and Lawrence Durrell), and Minton’s beautiful illustrations, are read and used to this day.
At a time when people “could not very often make the dishes here described”, David notes, it was nevertheless “stimulating to think about them; to escape from the deadly boredom of queuing and the frustration of buying the weekly rations; to read about real food cooked with wine and olive oil, eggs and butter and cream, and dishes richly flavoured with onions, garlic, herbs, and brightly coloured southern vegetables.”
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